Jane Stevenson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198185024
- eISBN:
- 9780191714238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185024.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This chapter focuses on the cultural dominance of French in 17th-century France. Latin was little used, though some churchmen still wrote in it. However, women played a highly visible role as ...
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This chapter focuses on the cultural dominance of French in 17th-century France. Latin was little used, though some churchmen still wrote in it. However, women played a highly visible role as cultural arbiters, and a number of bluestocking writers and salonnières, such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Mme de Sevigné, continued to learn Latin, though few wrote in it. There were also a few learned, aristocratic nuns. The arguments raised in favor of Latin learning for girls focused mostly on their potential future as educating mothers. However, Anne Dacier became famous as a translator from Greek, and it is also worth observing that the journal Mercure Galant, aimed at a mixed audience, encouraged women to study.Less
This chapter focuses on the cultural dominance of French in 17th-century France. Latin was little used, though some churchmen still wrote in it. However, women played a highly visible role as cultural arbiters, and a number of bluestocking writers and salonnières, such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Mme de Sevigné, continued to learn Latin, though few wrote in it. There were also a few learned, aristocratic nuns. The arguments raised in favor of Latin learning for girls focused mostly on their potential future as educating mothers. However, Anne Dacier became famous as a translator from Greek, and it is also worth observing that the journal Mercure Galant, aimed at a mixed audience, encouraged women to study.
Andrew Talle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040849
- eISBN:
- 9780252099342
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252040849.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book investigates the musical life of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Germany from the perspectives of those who lived in it. The men, women, and children of the era are treated here not as extras in ...
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This book investigates the musical life of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Germany from the perspectives of those who lived in it. The men, women, and children of the era are treated here not as extras in the life of a famous composer but rather as protagonists in their own right. The primary focus is on keyboard music, from those who built organs, harpsichords, and clavichords, to those who played keyboards recreationally and professionally, and those who supported their construction through patronage. Examples include: Barthold Fritz, a clavichord maker who published a list of his customers; Christiane Sibÿlla Bose, an amateur keyboardist and close friend of Bach’s wife; the Countesses zu Epstein, whose surviving library documents the musical interests of teenage girls of the era; Luise Gottsched, who found Bach’s music less appealing than that of Handel; Johann Christoph Müller, a keyboard instructor who fell in love with one of his aristocratic pupils; and Carl August Hartung, a professional organist and fanatical collector of Bach’s keyboard music. The book draws on published novels, poems, and visual art as well as manuscript account books, sheet music, letters, and diaries. For most music lovers of the era, J. S. Bach himself was an impressive figure whose music was too challenging to hold a prominent place in their musical lives.Less
This book investigates the musical life of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Germany from the perspectives of those who lived in it. The men, women, and children of the era are treated here not as extras in the life of a famous composer but rather as protagonists in their own right. The primary focus is on keyboard music, from those who built organs, harpsichords, and clavichords, to those who played keyboards recreationally and professionally, and those who supported their construction through patronage. Examples include: Barthold Fritz, a clavichord maker who published a list of his customers; Christiane Sibÿlla Bose, an amateur keyboardist and close friend of Bach’s wife; the Countesses zu Epstein, whose surviving library documents the musical interests of teenage girls of the era; Luise Gottsched, who found Bach’s music less appealing than that of Handel; Johann Christoph Müller, a keyboard instructor who fell in love with one of his aristocratic pupils; and Carl August Hartung, a professional organist and fanatical collector of Bach’s keyboard music. The book draws on published novels, poems, and visual art as well as manuscript account books, sheet music, letters, and diaries. For most music lovers of the era, J. S. Bach himself was an impressive figure whose music was too challenging to hold a prominent place in their musical lives.
Bruce Haynes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195189872
- eISBN:
- 9780199864218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189872.003.09
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The years 1760 to 1840 are usually associated with the Industrial Revolution. They also encompassed a series of significant musical developments that led from Galant music to the Romantic/Canonic ...
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The years 1760 to 1840 are usually associated with the Industrial Revolution. They also encompassed a series of significant musical developments that led from Galant music to the Romantic/Canonic aesthetic. During this period, every kind of musical instrument underwent a fundamental transformation from the Baroque type to the Romantic. String instruments were rebuilt, mainly in order to make them louder and reduce the overtones, giving them a rounder, thicker sound. Woodwinds were redesigned so that each semitone was played with its own dedicated tone hole; this meant adding keys to close those holes when they were not used. The general system of tuning changed fundamentally, as leading tones became high rather than low and a new simplifying universal tuning, equal temperament, became common. This chapter discusses Period instruments and the influence of musical instruments on performing style, violins, and hardware and software for Period instruments.Less
The years 1760 to 1840 are usually associated with the Industrial Revolution. They also encompassed a series of significant musical developments that led from Galant music to the Romantic/Canonic aesthetic. During this period, every kind of musical instrument underwent a fundamental transformation from the Baroque type to the Romantic. String instruments were rebuilt, mainly in order to make them louder and reduce the overtones, giving them a rounder, thicker sound. Woodwinds were redesigned so that each semitone was played with its own dedicated tone hole; this meant adding keys to close those holes when they were not used. The general system of tuning changed fundamentally, as leading tones became high rather than low and a new simplifying universal tuning, equal temperament, became common. This chapter discusses Period instruments and the influence of musical instruments on performing style, violins, and hardware and software for Period instruments.
L. Poundie Burstein
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190083991
- eISBN:
- 9780190084028
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190083991.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Through much of the eighteenth century, commentators often described musical form in relation to a type of journey leading toward a set of specific tonal/harmonic/melodic/rhythmic goals, punctuated ...
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Through much of the eighteenth century, commentators often described musical form in relation to a type of journey leading toward a set of specific tonal/harmonic/melodic/rhythmic goals, punctuated along the path by a standard series of resting points. Partly in reaction to developments witnessed in music composed during the high Classical era onward, since around the nineteenth century descriptions of musical form have tended to combine or even replace these “journey” metaphors with those that rely more heavily on architectonic analogies. When dealing with works composed around the middle of the 1700s, however, there are advantages for viewing musical form as it unfolds, much in the manner described by those who composed, improvised, listened to, and performed at the time. Taking as its focus the part of the movement now known as the exposition, this study analyzes the form of sonata-form works from Galant era by applying concepts and methodologies that stem from the eighteenth century, particularly those proposed by Heinrich Christoph Koch. It argues that analyzing this music through such a vantage point provides a valuable opportunity for understanding its form in a down-to-earth manner that can directly inform practical aspects of listening and performance.Less
Through much of the eighteenth century, commentators often described musical form in relation to a type of journey leading toward a set of specific tonal/harmonic/melodic/rhythmic goals, punctuated along the path by a standard series of resting points. Partly in reaction to developments witnessed in music composed during the high Classical era onward, since around the nineteenth century descriptions of musical form have tended to combine or even replace these “journey” metaphors with those that rely more heavily on architectonic analogies. When dealing with works composed around the middle of the 1700s, however, there are advantages for viewing musical form as it unfolds, much in the manner described by those who composed, improvised, listened to, and performed at the time. Taking as its focus the part of the movement now known as the exposition, this study analyzes the form of sonata-form works from Galant era by applying concepts and methodologies that stem from the eighteenth century, particularly those proposed by Heinrich Christoph Koch. It argues that analyzing this music through such a vantage point provides a valuable opportunity for understanding its form in a down-to-earth manner that can directly inform practical aspects of listening and performance.
Andrew Talle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040849
- eISBN:
- 9780252099342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252040849.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
One of Bach’s librettists observed in 1725: “anything one can see, hear, smell, taste, feel, sense or in any other way experience or imagine has to be described as galant, totally galant, and ...
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One of Bach’s librettists observed in 1725: “anything one can see, hear, smell, taste, feel, sense or in any other way experience or imagine has to be described as galant, totally galant, and completely galant.” This controversial word was closely associated with luxury, a product of Germany’s quickly evolving economic prosperity. New wealth inspired developments in aesthetics, philosophy, and science and the cultivation of expensive leisure time activities. Playing the keyboard increased in popularity over the course of Bach’s lifetime. The composer’s contemporaries associated themselves with galant music, especially minuets, bourrées, and gavottes of French origin, in order to establish social positions that had implications well beyond music. The merits of doing so were hotly debated by theorists such as Buttstedt and Mattheson.Less
One of Bach’s librettists observed in 1725: “anything one can see, hear, smell, taste, feel, sense or in any other way experience or imagine has to be described as galant, totally galant, and completely galant.” This controversial word was closely associated with luxury, a product of Germany’s quickly evolving economic prosperity. New wealth inspired developments in aesthetics, philosophy, and science and the cultivation of expensive leisure time activities. Playing the keyboard increased in popularity over the course of Bach’s lifetime. The composer’s contemporaries associated themselves with galant music, especially minuets, bourrées, and gavottes of French origin, in order to establish social positions that had implications well beyond music. The merits of doing so were hotly debated by theorists such as Buttstedt and Mattheson.
L. Poundie Burstein
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190083991
- eISBN:
- 9780190084028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190083991.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Musical form is often discussed by appealing to metaphors that compare formal sections either to types of containers or to segments of journeys. Although both metaphors are usually combined and used ...
More
Musical form is often discussed by appealing to metaphors that compare formal sections either to types of containers or to segments of journeys. Although both metaphors are usually combined and used interchangeably by most music analysts, since the nineteenth century container metaphors for form have tended to dominate. This contrasts with what was witnessed during the eighteenth century, where journey metaphors for musical form were more prevalent. The introductory chapter broadly compares container metaphors and journal metaphors for form, especially as they apply to sonata-form expositions in works composed during the Galant era. This chapter also introduces some of the features that tend to distinguish eighteenth-century formal discussions from modern ones, and it concludes with a preview of some of the strategies to be explored in subsequent chapters.Less
Musical form is often discussed by appealing to metaphors that compare formal sections either to types of containers or to segments of journeys. Although both metaphors are usually combined and used interchangeably by most music analysts, since the nineteenth century container metaphors for form have tended to dominate. This contrasts with what was witnessed during the eighteenth century, where journey metaphors for musical form were more prevalent. The introductory chapter broadly compares container metaphors and journal metaphors for form, especially as they apply to sonata-form expositions in works composed during the Galant era. This chapter also introduces some of the features that tend to distinguish eighteenth-century formal discussions from modern ones, and it concludes with a preview of some of the strategies to be explored in subsequent chapters.
